The Great Stink
‘But the Dragon was loose at the time . . .
No one had challenged him lately . . .
He got to our part of the world; nobody saw him of
course, there was just like a bad smell in the air
and everything went sour; people’s mouths and eyes
changed their look overnight – and the government
changed too.”
– The Dark Tower, Louis MacNeice, 1946
A musk wafted up the Thames when
the world’s largest yacht docked in London.
People loved to breathe in its perfume
until it soured into a stench spreading
like dry rot eating the standard of living.
So the people got nostalgic for a time
before The Great Stink even as they inhaled it
through screens in their palms.
Then a bitter angry face was hoisted like a flag
fluttering at boats crossing the channel.
IT’S THEM! He flapped. IT’S THEM!
THEY BROUGHT THE STINK!
And the people, angry their lives now stank,
couldn’t see the biggest yacht in the world
for the wee boats in the sea.
2025
Because, post-pandemic, he kept to himself,
his media feed drip-drip-dripped into his brain,
the algorithm flushed nuance down the drain
and everything got under his skin like a skelf.
Years passed. His world-view, once naturally lit,
darkened until he shut in shouting at shadows
wading deep online way beyond the shallows
down rabbit holes where dopamine hit after hit
was supplied by strangers feeding his addiction.
Hoarse voices drunk on drama, high on hysteria
played reality like a computer game as the media
mislead and overfed a click-baited attention span.
So now his fingers gently brush keys with spite,
firing words like bullets to the chant fight! fight!
On the X36, 8 a.m.
Moira smiled uneasily at the man
who sat beside her, distracted from
Reform propaganda on her phone.
Brian dozed against the pane,
brain rundown from juggling shifts
+ night feeding a newborn.
Linda cursed the ‘arseholes’ who
she shared an office like a jail cell
eight hours a day, five days a week.
Ian hunched in dirty overalls
recording up schoolgirls skirts:
flesh flashing to the top deck.
Meghan still felt her man
in the chill of the early morn:
muscled arm; tender lip on neck.
Bill’s bad knee ached as he braked.
Wipers scraped the windshield,
screaking like his wife’s tongue.
Muhammad returned Moira’s smile,
reminded of the warm welcome when . . .
Moira fidgeted; cranked the volume.
Ross Wilson